July 19, 2010

From “Nefarious Times in Depression-Era Central City” by F. G. Jims

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The projector stuttered for a moment as the projectionist changed reels. After a moment of distortion, the newsreel began to flicker on the silver screen.

“Central City News Corporation presents: News on Parade!” the announcer intoned, sounding to all the world like an overeager color commentator at Central Stadium.

“Crime Watch! Be on the lookout for these notorious gangsters, hoodlums, and criminals! Report any sightings to the theater management or the nearest CCPD dispatcher! Remember, these vile persons may be in the theater alongside you!”

“That’ll be the day,” Günter muttered.

A man appeared, sneering into the mugshot camera. “Rex Fuzzgaze, the thought-stealer! This diabolical Liverpudlian sorcerer has perfected the subtle art of mind control, impressing others with his gaze and using them for his nefarious purposes! Do not approach!”

Günter snorted. “Needs to see a barber about those eyebrows.”

An unassuming-looking businessman, well-groomed, holding his card with no clear expression. “Pendleton Carvey, the mad mechanical genius! His nefarious automata held up the Central Reserve just last week! Wanted dead or dying!”

“Probably didn’t have enough to occupy his mind during his day job,” Günter opined.

A woman, very pretty except for deeply sunken eyes and stringy hair. “Macha DeVries, the mutant mistress of ghouls! An accident at a university labs has placed her in a state of living death with command over the recently deceased! Won’t be taken alive!”

“Hmph,” said Günter. “I don’t believe that one for a moment. Too fantastic.”

“You’re right about that,” his seat neighbor croaked, stretching a pale, bony hand into her bucket of popcorn. “The camera adds at least ten pounds.”

 

July 18, 2010

From “Project H.E.L.E.N. and the Trojan Doomsday Horse” by Kenneth G. Lim

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“This is boring, Dad. Who cares about girls so much they’d go to war over one?”

I lowered my copy of The Big Book of Greek Mythology, sensing a crack in my plan to give Sean a classical education through the medium of bedtime stories.

“W-well, Helen was really just an excuse for Agamemnon to send an army to Troy,” I said.

“Armies are boring,” Sean sighed with a cynicism unbecoming a 7-year-old. “Uncle Dave’s in the army.”

This wouldn’t do. “Well, the army was just an excuse too,” I said, groping about for something to grab his attention. “They were really just…just androids, to make sure no one suspected.”

Sean perked up a bit. “Suspected what?”

“Suspected that…uh, that Agamemnon, Achilles, and Odysseus had superpowers. Agamemnon had…super-strength. Achilles was invincible. Odysseus could shoot lasers out of his eyes.”

“So they had a bunch of robots around so no one would wonder how they beat up all the bad guys all by themselves,” Sean said. “But how’d the war last 10 years?”

“Uh…the Trojans had robots too,” I said, trying to recall plot bits from Sean’s cartoons. “Lots of ’em. And superpowers. Priam could mind-control. Hector had super-speed. Paris had mutant healing factor.”

“Hmm…” Sean said.

“And Helen was a cyborg,” I said quickly. “The Trojans weren’t just in love with her, they wanted to use her technology to make an invincible army.”

“Wow! What happened next, Dad?”

I turned the page, hoping that what he was about to hear wouldn’t warp his appreciation of the classics too much.

 

July 5, 2010

From “The Plight of Lesser-Known Dragons” by Sue O. Ilios

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For although the bardic tales are littered with stories of fire-breathing wyrmkin, they but scratch the surface of these creatures’ fascinating natural history–with their long-ago extinction, now all but lost to us moderns.

To be sure, many breathed fire, but they were only a lucky few. Most of the great serpents did lack the specific combination of forebears and kismet to ignite their breath, relying instead on foul stenches, acids, billowing steam clouds, or–the the most part–strong jaws and an agile neck.

Flight was similarly a trait only the most fortunate of the great wyrms posessed, and many lacked the power even with wings. Far more chose to take to rivers and lakes, rocky crags, or mountain passes to buffet on ill-starred passersby.

Consider the case of Smallmaw. He could only expel a blast of air from his mouth, which was too constrained to rend and tear a grown man, and whose stunted wings could not support flight. Yet this wyrmkin rose to be among the most feared in the British Isles before the Roman invasions purely on the strength of the one aspect our legends accurately describe: a deep and cunning intellect.

 

July 3, 2010

From “The Monestary Road” by Jan K. Chen

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“Yes?” The man said. His eyes remained closed, and nothing save his mouth budged from the position of thoughtful meditation it occupied.

“I was just wondering, sir, if you could give me directions,” Jarl said, craning his neck to address the man atop his rock.

“That depends on where you want to go,” the man said evenly.

“Hoborg,” said Jarl. “I need to go to Hoborg.”

“You must reach within yourself, to find that you already know the way to Hoborg.”

“I…wait, what?” Jarl said, cocking his head. “No, I don’t know the way to Hoborg! I wouldn’t be asking if I did!”

“Would you now?” the man asked. “Would you indeed? Perhaps you simply do not know what it is you know.”

“You’re messing with me, aren’t you? Just trying to shoo me away with a lot of nonsense?”

“Perhaps.” The last ‘s’ trailed off into a low hiss.

 

July 2, 2010

From “The 301st Fighting Unicorn Division” by R. G. Lemure

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“They call this creature the Mana Cricket, even though it’s really more of a grasshopper,” said Spinelli. “It feeds off of arcane essence ethereally siphoned from other living beings.”

The insect alighted on Gibbons’ arm and began crawling around. “Hey! That tickles!” she squealed.

“Now, one Mana Cricket obviously isn’t going to do much, and is easily squashed,” said Spinelli, adjusting his uniform cap. “Happily, they’re rarely seen in groups of less than 1,000.”

Dozens more large blue grasshoppers descended on Gibbons, causing her to emit a series of shrill not-quite-screams, not-quite-laughs. They crawled over her, apparently benignly; she didn’t reach for the pistol in her holster or attempt to summon a fireball.

“Of course, even a thousand–or hundred thousand–Mana Crickets can’t kill you,” Spinelli said.

One by one, the grasshoppers alighted, leaving Gibbons alone and swaying. “I don’t feel so good,” she moaned.

“But what they can do is drain you so completely that it will take days for your natural arcane essence to rejuvenate, and in the meantime…”

A door in the arena opened, revealing an immature ghast which promptly charged Gibbons, its knuckles dragging through the dirt. She gestured with her arm, apparently expecting a fireball to spring from her fingertips; when none was forthcoming, she could only utter a startled “Ugh!” as the ghast tackled her.

“Don’t worry, it’s been declawed and defanged.”

 

June 28, 2010

From “Strange Days in the Dennis Fields” by Joy Marie Kleinbeck

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Dr. Stryver paged through the manusccript. “The Edoans worshiped a variety of deities, the most prominent of which was Eonar, god of summer. He was said to wander the countryside in the guise of a friendly old gardener, well-rounded by plentiful food and deeply tanned. Passersby would find him working their garden or fields, after which the harvest would be unusually bountiful.”

“Does the book say anything about his eye color?” Harry asked. “Or some kind of necklace or talisman? Maybe a weapon?”

“Hmm, let’s see…usually dressed as a laborer…known to indulge heartily in wine…ah! Yes, it says that those he visited sometimes knew him by his unworldly violet eyes. And…yes! There’s mention of a sickle or scythe-shaped charm, a gift from his son Edoyar, god of he harvest.”

Harry and Kim looked at each other meaningfully.

“As for a weapon…all it mentions is that Eonar was a renowned archer.”

“There’s no doubt, then,” said Kim. “That’s he man we saw in the Dennis Fields.”

 

June 24, 2010

From “Elementalism and Other Small Town Activities” by H. J. Yorktowne

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Danya wasn’t terribly good with firearms, but the rules of her order forbade open use of elemental power among the uninitiated (she, along with many of the younger initiates, glibly referred to this as the “Harry Potter Rule”). Many cantrips involved a small projectile, a sudden burst of speed, and maybe a flash and crack for theatricality–not unlike a gunshot.

So by loading a pistol with blanks and heading down to the Rio de Janiero shooting range (creatively named after the January River that wound through downtown Sutton, Ohio), was a way to practice in public without much suspicion. And, if an assailant threatened on a lonely winter’s night, who could have told the difference between a clean gunshot and an Invocation of Stony Ignition and Animation?

She was enjoying herself, and attempting to draw a star on the paper target using Invocations of Base Metals From Air combined with Invocations of Airy Speed, when a shooter in the next booth leaned over.

“You have wonderful aim. Where’d you learn to handle a pistol?”

 

June 21, 2010

From “The Alabaster Talisman” by Gordon Winthrope

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Of course, there was the matter of the substance’s alchemical properties, as well. Johnathan had been experimenting with its rational, scientific aspects, but was quite thrilled to take it “off the books” to see what its interaction with the fantastical might be. He wasn’t so naive as to expect it to the lead-to-gold bullet ameteurs had so long sought, but he had enough of the Knack to see that the ore was particularly drawn to the ley line which ran through the laboratory.

His thoughts were interrupted on seeing a light on in the lab.

No, not a light–a flashlight, swinging to and fro, accompanied by scrapings, crashes, and other generally unhealthy sounds.

Creeping up as silently as he could, Johnathan eased the door open and flicked on the overhead light, illuminating a scene of utter ruin with a slim intruder at its heart.

“May I ask what you’re doing redecorating my laboratory at the witching hour?” he asked. Behind his back, one hand began to silently go through the motions of a holding charm.

“Ah…janitor in training?”

“Nice try.”

 

June 18, 2010

From “The Tome of Nlarad” by Roosevelt Kurtis Scott

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The veneer was cast aside almost instantly, and I saw Cela’s bright eyes harden to slate gray.

“You insolent pup!” she shrieked. Wreathes of white-hot fire burst from her fingertips, blazing a path across the room towards me.

My sword stuck in its scabbard as I tried to pull it free, forcing a quick duck and roll that left the bench I’d been sitting on a smoldering cinder.

“Don’t do this!” I cried.

“You had your chance to be sensible,” hissed Cela. “Now you’ll see how the Crimson Order swats down troublesome flies!” Her hands were ablaze again, directing rivulets of living flame toward me as everything flammable in the manse’s anteroom began to blacken and curl.

Finally, the stubborn blade was loosed, and I held it in front of me, cruciform-style, with the point on the ground.

“How quaint! The little boy thinks he can scratch the grown-up with his toy!”

Cela’s cackle turned to sputtering rage as she saw my blade do its work, sucking up the energies she’d unleashed as they approached. It glowed and sparked but remained cool to the touch.

“A saugendolch!” she exclaimed. “Clever, perhaps, but not clever enough!”

The support beams above began to twist and crack apart.

 

May 20, 2010

From “Avatar of Aquerna” by P. Elizabeth Smalley

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The “Nature’s Bounty” feast, put on by the Callahan Country Students for a Happy Earth, had generated a lot of leftovers, which they had promptly abandoned to biodegrade. Gaines Park maintenance volunteers had been called in to deal with the issue; Isaac cannily observed that the CCSHE’s reasoning had been sound, and that a biodegredation site away from picnic tabletops was the only missing piece.

Gabe confronted Isaac as he was packing away his gear. “There’s a pile of miscellaneous nuts sitting on top of that flagstone,” he said. “We were supposed to clean them up.”

“It’s a shrine to Aquerna, the Norse goddess of squirrels. She’ll take them if she wants them.”

“You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?” Gabe said.

“Believe what you want. I’m not cleaning it up.”

Defeated, Gabe left Isaac to rake leaves in the vicinity of the “shrine,” which he went about with characteristic sloth and lack of attention to detail. Returning from a long, leisurely stroll to deposit a bunch of leaves in a bag, Isaac noticed that the pile of nuts had disappeared from the flagstone. He also noticed a short brunette girl in the bushes nearby who seemed to be wearing nothing but her birthday suit.

As much as Isaac appreciated the aesthetics of the human form, Callahan County and Gaines Park had strict statutes in place to keep nude sunbathers from the nearby college at bay, and volunteers were often put upon to summon the authorities or chase them down.

“Hey, earth child!” Isaac yelled. “It’s too early, and you’re too pasty, for sunbathing to do anything! Get lost!”

She turned and regarded him with wide eyes.”Hello. I am the Avatar of Aquerna.”

“W-what?” Isaac felt his heart stutter; no one should have known about that save Gabe. “I made that up! It was just empty snarkiness!”

“By invoking the name and attaching it to a site, you designated a site,” the girl said. “By refusing to recant when confronted, you expressed a belief. Ethereal beings need human belief to exist, and a site to manifest. You have provided Aquerna with the first of each in over one thousand years, and her avatar is before you now in gratitude.”

 

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